The invention relates to high speed data transmission cables and connectors use in avionics, and, particularly, to a connector designed to meet the needs of original equipment manufacturers (OEM) for higher density packing, lower profiles, modular designs, low cost solutions and ease of use and reparability.
Typically the high speed transmission cables include shielded parallel pair cables or various types of coax cables. Typically these data transmission cables are terminated at connector assemblies using coax or special contacts. The connector assemblies include connector receptacles made according to military specifications. For example, in electronic enclosures, panel connectors are used to interconnect the signals originating inside an enclosure and to other avionic boxes. MIL-C-38999 connectors are popular connectors used widely in the military and aerospace avionics applications. These connectors have typically used a variety of sizes of different coaxial contacts. However, the coaxial contacts are expensive, labor intensive, and limited in the number that can be provided within a specified connector shell size.
The prior cables and connectors used in avionic systems have the shortcomings that they are limited in the number of cables that can be accommodated due to the physical size of the connectors, and the coaxial contacts used make the connectors expensive.